Evaluation - Question 2

•How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our film is set and filmed in dark, secluded areas that create an eerie and mysterious feel for the viewers – as any stereotypical thriller would. We have only two characters in our film, one being a young teenage girl (the victim) and another being a middle aged man who would be stereotypically named as the villain. We have used these characters to represent a classic capture and chase between an innocent female and dominant male. We proposed the idea that stereotypically young females play the vulnerable role and male adults are more dominant and powerful.

Hand shots and body shot of the villian in our film 'Tortured'

In order to create the perfect dark, mysterious character for our male villian we felt dressing him in all black would give the correct effect. We never give away a full image of the male character which adds to the mystery. In the third picture we see the villian walk past the camera as the young girl is tied up, this shot consists of him 'blurring' past the screen which means the audience never see fully what he looks like. Editing has allowed us to darken this shot thus blending the colours in the background into the characters allowing everything to appear vague and chilling. In comparison to other thrillers using the antagonist/protagonist theme we have researched into we have tried heavily to stay closely to the dark/atmospheric/obscure throughout feel. Similarly to 'Seven' (as previously mentioned) the idea of just seeing hands meant the audience had no idea who the person doing these actions was. We felt adapting our piece to follow this idea meant we could put emphasis onto the dark intentions of the villian character.

Hand shots from the film 'Seven'

Following this,  as our male character is in his mid 40's he has a substantial number of years of experience and knowledge in comparison to the teenage girl. Using this character we have tried to portray the stereotypical idea that antagonist men have power and dominance over innocent women. By using extreme close ups we have allowed this character to appear 'larger than life' and allow the audience to create their own idea of what he looks like, further emphasising the mystery and tension behind his actions. This stops the audience from identifying him as the everyday man seen on the street.

Our second character, the young female is the victim throughout the opening is shown in full allowing the audience to gain a clear view of how she looks. This means she is less mysterious appearing more innocent and naive. The close up shots we have used of the young girl (such as when her hands are tied up) emphasises her vulnerability, thus her lack of power in comparison to the male character. We have also taken long shots such as when she's sat down and running away to give the audience an idea of her petite size, representing that she's inferior and only a child. The female's costume consists of a black ball gown, showing her femininity and suggesting that she didn't expect to be in the situation we're showing, further adding to the thrilling mystery.



Shots of the female character in our opening ' Tortured'

Our female character shows similar characteristics to those of actress Halle Berry in 'Gothika' - directed by Mathieu Kassovitz in 2003. Similarly to our story, the young woman is presented as helpless and vulnerable which allowed us to gain ideas of how a female victim must act and be shown to suggest they have been captured and tortured.